Chapter Six
Avery pretended to be annoyed that she had to bring Bobby with her, mostly so he would remember that she was his big sister and he had to listen to her. But secretly, Bobby was her favorite. Of course, if he knew that he would abuse it, so she made sure he stayed in his place.
“Don’t rev the ATV, you’ll flood it.”
“Slow down, there’re ruts up ahead.”
“Geez, Bobby, you’re slow as molasses! Cleo isn’t going to be sitting on the side of the road waiting for you to show up.”
Avery was also worried about the cat. She’d helped Bobby look for her every day this week after school, up until dark.
She was even late for her after-dinner FaceTime with Ryan last night.
Ryan offered to help find the cat, which totally endeared him to Avery, but her mom said no, and Ryan’s dad said no, and that was so totally unfair.
It wasn’t even technically a school night for the McKennas since they were all missing classes today because of the storm.
She was going to be sixteen in less than two months! She was smart and responsible and rarely complained about always being tasked to keep an eye on Bobby.
But no, her boyfriend couldn’t come over because of some dumb reason that only their parents thought was valid.
She glanced back at Bobby. He was moving slow, his gaze going right and left, scanning the ditches and fields for the black-and-white cat.
She slowed down as well, looking for Cleo, while calculating how maybe she could convince her mom to let Ryan come over before the storm to help.
The Perezes lived just outside Gainesville, so it was a bit of a drive, and maybe if Ryan came this afternoon when he got out of school, he would be stuck all weekend.
They could watch movies and maybe kiss—when Jake stopped glaring at Ryan.
Was it Avery’s fault that Jake and Ryan had been friends first?
Or that Jake had caught them kissing after a football game months ago?
He acted totally weird. Ryan would be seventeen the week after Avery turned sixteen—it was perfect. They were perfect.
She sighed, frustrated but dreaming of her future with Ryan, carving out their own little farm where she would grow berries and create her own label for jams, jellies, and syrups and sell the jars on the internet and to local stores.
She had even written a business plan for her economics class that her teacher said was good—she’d gotten an A—and Ryan also loved the idea.
If only her mom would agree.
Maybe Gianna would have a good idea on how to get Ryan over for the weekend.
Though Gianna was four years older than Avery, they had been friends for seemingly forever.
The Mendozas were practically family; Avery had known them her entire life.
Avery went over at least once a week just to play games and talk with Gianna, who was lonely—eighteen months ago, when she was a freshman in college, a drunk driver hit her while she was crossing the street and now she was partially paralyzed from the waist down.
She went to physical therapy twice a week and she wanted to go back to college this fall, but her parents hovered, worried she would be hours from home with no one to help her.
Avery had never been one to keep her opinions to herself, and she told Gianna she needed to talk to her parents and be totally honest. They didn’t have to agree, she just had to explain how she felt and then do it.
She was an adult. She already had a full scholarship, plus money from a settlement after the accident, more than enough for any help she might need while away from home.
But Gianna didn’t want to hurt her parents.
They were much older than Avery’s parents because they’d had Gianna in their forties when they thought they’d never have kids.
Avery understood that, too. She never wanted to hurt her mom if she could avoid it, but still.
This was Gianna’s life. She could do things, needed to do things.
Gianna wanted to be a teacher, and there was no reason she couldn’t do that even in a wheelchair.
And she could walk short distances with crutches or a walker, and the physical therapist said with time she may even be able to walk without an aid.
Sometimes Avery didn’t know why she was giving advice to a twenty-year-old.
But after her dad died, Avery had started thinking about life differently.
She couldn’t explain it, and didn’t try to understand.
All she knew was that she wanted to live fully.
She loved the farm, she loved Ryan, she loved her friends, and she loved her family.
She wanted to give one hundred percent of herself to everything she loved.
She also loved Gianna and couldn’t stand that her friend was unhappy and her parents still walked on eggshells because for eighteen months, Gianna had gone from nearly dying to being wheelchair-bound to walking a few assisted feet every day.
They hovered and worried, and none of that was good for Gianna—or Carl and Rose, Avery thought.
Bobby slowed before they reached the long driveway that led to the Mendoza house.
Though Whisper Creek Ranch had bought most of the Mendoza property, they had retained ten acres for their house, barn, and field for the sheep they still kept.
Carl Mendoza had never been a farmer—he’d inherited the land from his parents, and had owned a hardware store in Whitesboro until he sold it last year when he retired.
Avery idled next to Bobby. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Mom said I could check out the old barn, the one that stored all the equipment Mr. Mendoza let get rusty?”
Avery blinked back sudden tears. Bobby sounded just like their dad.
He had wanted the Mendozas to sell years ago.
They had let their land get overgrown and their equipment rusted to the point most of it wasn’t even salvageable.
When they’d finally agreed to sell, their dad had to take care of everything they had avoided for more than a decade.
Avery remembered how her dad would teach them not only how to care for livestock, how to plant, when to harvest, but the little things—how to keep the equipment in good repair, how to check outbuildings for dry rot and termites, how to care for the land and their home.
He was so … patient. In how he spoke, how he taught, how he lived.
Steadfast and diligent in making sure they all grew to love and care for their farm as much as he did.
Bobby tilted his head and looked at her, maybe sensing that she was upset, so she scowled at him. She didn’t want to talk about Dad right now. He’d been gone nearly a year, and sometimes she had these overwhelming and raw feelings that made her sad and angry.
Bobby implored her with his big brown eyes and gestured down the overgrown path that led to the structure, which could be partly seen through the brush. “Please? Mom said,” he reiterated.
She knew her mom had already okayed it, so she nodded, but added a dramatic sigh so he would understand this was a concession on her part.
After all, she needed Bobby to remember who was in charge.
“I’ll check out the barn next to the house,” she said.
“Cleo wasn’t scared of our sheep, maybe she made friends with the Mendoza sheep.
” She smiled, wanting Bobby to believe that they’d find her and everything would be okay.
“Meet me at their house, okay? Thirty minutes, tops. Mom will have my hide—and yours, too—if you get caught in the rain.”
Bobby smiled and waved as he turned down the muddy and deeply rutted road, a small cage tied on the back of his ATV. She really hoped he found Cleo, because he was probably the only one who could get that darn cat into the cage and back to their house.
Avery continued to Gianna’s house. She parked the ATV between the garage and the barn and turned off the ignition.
Thunder sounded in the distance and made her jump.
A solid blanket of gray clouds covered the sky.
The wind wasn’t too bad yet, certainly nothing that foreshadowed the storm everyone was worried about.
But Avery had been through at least a dozen bad storms that she vividly remembered, including the one last weekend.
And Grandma was baking more than usual, which told Avery she was worried.
Grandma’s motto was essentially, if you had enough food stockpiled, you could get through anything.
Avery left the casseroles in the ATV storage box and went into the barn.
Immediately, she wrinkled her nose. Based on the smell, no one had let the sheep out this morning.
They bleated at her rather frantically. Animals sensed bad weather better than people, but the McKenna sheep hadn’t been as agitated as these.
She flipped on the overhead lights and saw that all the troughs were empty.
It was nearly ten—had the family gone out and couldn’t get back because the roads were already closed off?
She doubted it, but maybe the sheriff’s department had blocked them off preemptively.
Flash flooding often came after a rain, and last night it had dropped buckets on them.
The Mendozas only had fifty sheep, all recently sheared—Bobby and Lyla had come to help two weeks ago because of Mr. Mendoza’s arthritis. Now, they all practically ran to Avery, bleating and crowding, seeking her attention.
She turned the water on to fill their trough, then went over to the alfalfa storage bin and, one at a time, tossed three bundles into the center of their large pen, which took up half the barn. The family no longer had horses, just the sheep, so there was plenty of room.
After, Avery looked in all the empty stalls for the cat. She didn’t see Cleo.